


Relics

by asenath_waite



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Gen, Kaer Morhen, Libraries, Possible Book Spoilers, Triss's warmongering, Triss/Philippa mentioned, Vignette, mages do not respect boundaries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:00:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25152022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asenath_waite/pseuds/asenath_waite
Summary: Triss explores Kaer Morhen and learns more than she needs to know. Eskel is not amused.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 27





	Relics

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place during chapters 2-3 of Blood of Elves.

Eskel heard Triss's footsteps and swore softly. She wasn't supposed to be in this part of Kaer Morhen. Technically, neither was he, but the people who would have objected to his presence were long dead.

He closed the book he had been reading and called her name. 

She jumped and shrieked, then her footsteps sped up and a moment later she appeared at the door with a globe of golden light in her hand.

"Eskel?" she asked, looking curiously around the room. "Is this another library? What are you doing down here?"

"Reading," he said. "What are _you_ doing down here? Vesemir specifically asked you not to explore the castle alone."

"I'm sorry," she said, but she didn't look or sound sorry. "What is this place?"

"Private. Let's go back upstairs." Kaer Morhen's main library had been almost completely destroyed during the sacking, and Vesemir packed away the few surviving books shortly thereafter. Someday, Eskel hoped, he would be able to take them out and reorganize them. Maybe another fifty years would dull the pain enough to make it bearable. 

"Wait," Triss said, peering intently at the bookshelves. "These books have misdirection spells on them--how can you--"

 _Shit._ Well, it had only been a matter of time before one of them figured it out. Better Triss than Yennefer, whose curiosity made all of them uncomfortable, even Geralt sometimes. Eskel once had a nightmare in which Yennefer attempted to cut the _tapetum lucidum_ out of his eyes, and even though he doubted she would really do such a thing, he still avoided her whenever Geralt brought her around. 

"Eskel?" Triss asked carefully. "How long have you been studying magic?"

He sighed. "Longer than you've been alive." At least he thought so. He wasn't sure of Triss's age, only that she was very young by the standards of sorceresses. 

"Why?" she asked.

That wasn't the question he'd expected. He shrugged. "Your lot kept telling me I had the aptitude. Thought I'd look into it."

"But then why are you still, well..."

"Doing the dirty and dangerous work of a witcher instead of enjoying the sweet life of a sorcerer? Because I'd rather root every zeugl out of every cesspit on the Continent than deal with your precious Chapter. I'd feel less dirty afterwards."

Triss crossed her arms and glared at him. "Do they know about you? Because if they don't, you know I'm obligated to tell them."

"Discuss me with Philippa Eilhart before you tell anyone else, please," he said, and raised an eyebrow when Triss blushed and looked away. So old Owl-face had a new notch on her bedpost. Interesting. 

"I will, I promise," Triss said. She stepped closer to the shelves and squinted intently at the books, probably trying to see through the concealment spells. 

Eskel stood up and gently took her arm. "It's time we went back upstairs, Triss. You shouldn't be here."

"These books," she said, ignoring him. "This is the old mages' library, isn't it? It looks like it wasn't even touched...and you're a mage...are you planning to put Ciri through the Trials?" 

"Absolutely not," Eskel growled. "No female child has ever survived the Wolf School mutation process. We stopped trying centuries ago." 

"No _female_ child," she repeated. "So not Ciri. But what about male children? Are you going to bring home a few orphan boys next winter? If you can recreate the process--"

"I won't," he interrupted. "The Trials will never happen again, Triss. _Never."_

"You won't?" Triss repeated. "But you could, couldn't you? And instead you've decided to let witchers die out? I find that hard to believe."

Eskel sighed. He wanted to tell her how many of his childhood friends died during the Trials; how the seizures broke Rollo's back; how Geralt screamed until he couldn't and his voice was never the same afterwards. He wanted to describe exactly what had happened to Kristof's eyes. He wanted to tell her that he still saw the iron-bound oak door of the Laboratorium in his nightmares at least once a week.

But those were witcher secrets, and Triss had no right to them. 

"You want the last witchers to die in a war," he said instead. "I'd have us die as we were always meant to. Let's go back upstairs, please."

She let herself be herded out the door, not without a few last longing looks at the bookshelves. Eskel sighed. He'd need to tell Vesemir and the others that they couldn't leave Triss alone anymore. 

He decided to take her back up to the ground floor by a circuitous route that ended in the kitchens. The underground vaults of Kaer Morhen had survived the sacking relatively intact, but he made sure to point out the few dangerous areas they passed. 

"I don't want you to die in a war," Triss panted as he led her up yet another narrow spiral staircase. "I want you to help defend the northern kingdoms from Nilfgaard."

"How, exactly, do you think we can help?" Eskel asked. He brushed his fingers over an old bloodstain on the wall. Six trainees had made their final stand here. "Should we pick a king and enlist in his army? I'm sure his human soldiers would consider us ideal comrades. Or would you have us become assassins? Sneak into Nilfgaard and murder the emperor in his bed?"

"Actually, that's not a bad idea..."

"Witchers are not murderers, Triss. We kill monsters. Not people." _Wolf witchers aren't murderers, anyway,_ he added silently. _No need to tell her about the Cats._

"Emhyr var Emreis _is_ a monster!" she snapped. "A monster who wants to devour every land we know, and the people as well! And you think killing him is beneath you?"

"It's not beneath us; it's _not what we do._ Are your kings truly suffering from a lack of assassins?"

"I don't understand you, I really don't," Triss gasped. "The war is coming, Eskel. The world is changing, and yet you witchers want to continue on as--as relics of some romantic past--"

"But that's exactly what we are," he interrupted. "Relics. As far as I know, the five of us here are the only witchers left in the world." He hadn't said that aloud before, or even thought it very clearly. He tried to remember the last time he'd met any other witcher. Ten years past? Twenty? 

"Do you want pity?" she sneered. "You seem happy enough to fade away."

Eskel decided not to rise to the bait. "You described the coming war as a vulture," he said. "I think it would be more accurate to call it a vampire, and you the vampire's thrall, trying to lure us into its den."

"That's not fair," Triss protested. "All I want is for the northern kingdoms to remain free. I'm asking you for help."

"You're asking the last witchers to die for politics," he said, opening the door to the storeroom under the kitchen and beckoning her inside. "When corpse-eaters crawl out of your glorious battlefields, who's going to exterminate them? Widows and orphans?" 

"You're as neutral as a banker," she hissed.

Eskel sighed and started gathering beets and onions into a basket. He noticed the way Triss intently examined each bin and assumed she was looking for the mutagenic mushrooms and greens they had been feeding Ciri. Fortunately those were stored elsewhere. "You don't understand us at all, and I don't think you want to," he said. "The kitchen's at the top of these stairs. Have you taken a turn cooking yet?"


End file.
